Erm it does actually and also the argument that pirated versions run smoother because they don't have disc checking are now almost completly null and void.

The new copy protection have apparently been upgraded so much they are virtually impossible to crack leading to people using all sorts of stunts, virtual cds, virtual cd hiders and a general assortment of workaround to try and get the game to work.

This is true. The game has NOT been cracked. Only a clone of it is available. One of the protection workarounds for this game was a program known to cause crashes and BSODs. Many of the problems were probably caused by this since it was the recommended workaround to play the game.

Still, it does not make sense that the warez version which is a CLONE CD would perform any worse than the legit version.

Erm it does actually and also the argument that pirated versions run smoother because they don't have disc checking are now almost completly null and void.

The new copy protection have apparently been upgraded so much they are virtually impossible to crack leading to people using all sorts of stunts, virtual cds, virtual cd hiders and a general assortment of workaround to try and get the game to work. I've even heard of people physically removing the ide cables from their optical drives to get stuff to work.

All of this eats valuable clock cycles and memory which is no longer there for the game.

I'm sure there are ways around if you use the ultracracked postpatch prebeta version of the latest cd burning stuff but really it's getting to the point where the copy protection is getting good enough to discourage lazy pirates.

Not sure if this is good thing or a bad thing - it's quite nice to be able to dabble in a game rather then playing the publishers choice of the best bits. It also can give me a chance to gauge my "Blockbuster" rule which goes roughly.

A dvd rental costs £4 for a film - average film length about 105 minutes. If the cost of the game/the average time to complete works out to ~ £4-£5 for 105 mins I'll buy it. If not I'll wait for the bargin bin.

For example Doom 3 new was £35 and lasted roughly 8 hours. Or roughly £7.70 per 105 minutes therefore no sale!

Fear costs about the same but lasts around 12 hours according to the reviews (price per 105 mins £5.10) so I'll pick it later this week

Production costs for games are still much lower then most films yet some publishers still charge much more per hour for their product - no wonder it is the fastest growing media sector!This comment was edited on Oct 17, 16:28.

Penny Arcade wrote about this today. Bascially, since Jack Thompson wont own up and donate $10,000 to charity like he claimed he would if somebody made his game ((http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5883), PA made the donation for him. In his name.

And it looks like they were aiming for a bigger release (or just had their sh3t together) and shipped the game to some retailers earlier than normal. I was aware of some claims that it was up for purchase at certain stores Friday morning, meaning they would have received the product by Thursday (at least.)

I so want digital delivery. I wil be surprised if GoGamer does not lag its usual few days and then I have to wait two days for FedEx...F.E.A.R. > X3Waiting, waiting, waiting :(,Ray

I've been reading some of those tech support posts and it would seem that the autodetection is a little too optimistic. I would like to add that some problems were caused by anti-anti-emulation software. I guess that's what this piracy stuff came about(?). That or it is because people got the game so many days before the official release date and preorder date. Doesn't EBgames/Walmart send out their preorders today or tomorrow for FEAR?

Semantics: Given that I spent about 90 minutes of those 3 hours fucking about in the first level, trying to work out why the automatically-adjusted settings really weren't working properly, downloading new drivers, swearing at my mouse, and various other things, I doubt I've played as much of it as it would seem

Aside from the odd default settings, the only actual bug I've come across is that the mouse buttons seem to "stick" if you hold them down too long... I've managed to get stuck on auto-melee a few times, and empty entire clips when I've only meant to fire a few rounds in someone's direction. It's almost not worth fixing that bug though, because you get to wreak such lovely havoc with it

Simply because some dumb kid VU hired to man the forums said something ridiculous isn't reason enough to avoid the game (Derek Smart, meet VU-Greg, your new public relations specialist). But it is disturbing that there seem to be loads of people with ninja systems and performance issues.

As someone in that thread correctly points out, an unintended consequence of draconian piracy prevention software is to increase the incentive to pirate, since the pirated version will often work better precisely because it lacks the problematic security algorithms. I would guess the most profitable prevention scheme is something extremely simple that prevents only the most casual of pirating. Anything more than that is largely ineffective because determined pirates will succeed anyways, and largely counterproductive because it will cause problems for legitimate customers.